


That one might never know

by Eloarei



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Adultery, Canonical Character Death, Family Secrets, Gen, Illegitimacy, No Dialogue, Parent-Child Relationship, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-10 19:20:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18414245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloarei/pseuds/Eloarei
Summary: Vayne's affair with his father's new wife was little more than a curiosity. He didn't think he loved her; he didn't think the men of House Solidorcouldlove-- until he held Larsa in his arms.





	That one might never know

**Author's Note:**

> This was not the FFXII fic I meant to write. But isn't that just fic writing, huh? Part of me wants to have taken longer on this fic, but as it was an idea that came out of nowhere I decided to just make an afternoon of it.

There seemed to be a curse upon kings’-wives. Invariably, they were always set upon by some illness, and could not be saved for all the money in the world. Most usually, the illness would come upon her late into carrying her first child-- or sometime soon after its birth, if they were lucky. Lord Gramis’ first wife was apparently blessed by the gods, that she was able to bear three whole and hale sons before the curse came for its due. But it _did_ come for its due, and she perished, as kings’-wives often did.  
  
So it was not surprising that Gramis took a second wife. (The surprise was that she was only his second wife.) This was some years after his first wife had succumbed to illness, and as he still had three healthy sons (the youngest of them nearly an adult himself), it was an unexpected decision.  
  
Ancita Ferrinas Solidor was no more Vayne’s mother than she was his father’s one true love. (If Gramis had ever had such a thing, it would have been his gods-blessed first wife.) She was a young and beautiful thing, meant to give the king yet another beautiful child, for royalty must always be beautiful, lest people begin to question them. Vayne didn’t wonder that his father felt the need for another heir, now that he was getting older and beginning to understand the treachery and duplicity of their line. For all that Vayne’s mother had been blessed, she had also been far too smart for her progenies’ own good, and that cunning mixed with the Solidor ambition was like to get her children into dangerous amounts of trouble.  
  
And so it was that Gramis took a _gentler_ second wife, who might bear him a son that could be controlled.  
  
Vayne did not think he loved her; he was not sure a Solidor _could_ love. But they fell together with a sickly secret enthusiasm, he and his father’s wife, she being hardly older than he. Ancita felt some shame for the time they spent together; Vayne felt none. They kept the affair tight between them, not because he cared that he might upset his father, but because the ensuing drama, should their relationship (such as it was) come to light, would be far more tedious than it was worth.  
  
As yet, Vayne had no grand plans about becoming the Emperor-- leastwise not in such a fashion that he should ever require an heir. Were he to rule (an eventual inevitability, in his opinion; his brothers weren’t fit for it), he would do so as he pleased, tradition and Senate be damned. Political marriages and heirs were for those less apt rulers, those who might be assassinated at any given moment. Vayne had no such plans for himself. He would rule until he was done, and then the Senate could elect whoever they damned well pleased; why should he care?  
  
The birth of his son changed his mind, about a lot of things.  
  
He hadn’t thought he could love. It wasn’t something he’d ever seen from his father, or his brothers. They _cared,_ he was sure, in their own way, as did he for them. But the way he felt when first he held the tiny babe, it was unlike anything he could imagine. For the first time, he knew he would give up his life if need be, to protect this child.  
  
Gramis named him Larsa, under the impression (as was nearly everyone else) that he was his. There was no reason to doubt it; pale, light-eyed and dark of hair, he looked the part, like he could be Vayne’s brother. He had many of Vayne’s features, which was not unexpected by anyone. To be fair, he looked his fair share like the rest of the Solidor family, and perhaps could be said to bear most resemblance to Vayne largely because Vayne was yet the youngest, the only one still with that youthful glint in his eye. Only he and Ancita knew the truth, and that suited him just fine.  
  
The Lady Ancita, sadly, was not immune to the curse of kings’-wives. She didn’t live past nursing Larsa, struck by a sudden and rather horrible illness. The babe was the only one who was particularly surprised and upset by her sudden absence, and as Vayne rocked him through a fit of unstoppable tears, he wondered if the gods were displeased with their deception and had cursed her more violently than the norm.  
  
‘Let them be displeased,’ he thought, humming a tune to Larsa. He cared not for the gods; and he cared not what they thought of the union between king’s-wife and king’s-son. It had brought him this, this perfect child, and he would fight any god who would dare take offense at Larsa.  
  
Though Vayne knew not how to be an older brother, nor how to be a father (having no experience in either matter himself), he did his best to strike a balance between the two, and found a middle ground not far from his understanding of either. Gramis adored Larsa; _everyone_ adored Larsa. But it was Vayne who raised him, about which nobody had any complaints or, luckily, any suspicions. (Where before Vayne hid his and Ancita’s relationship out of convenience, he now did it to ensure Larsa’s position. It was clear to him that Gramis would take another wife and try for another heir, if he should become aware that Larsa was illegitimate. And despite what Vayne had used to think, he now knew that his goal was to see Larsa on the throne.)  
  
As obvious as the birthing process made it, Larsa’s temperament made it even more abundantly clear that he was the child of Gramis’ gentler second wife. Vayne was sure that never in the Solidor line had there been a prince so kind and soft-hearted. These were not traits Vayne ever appreciated until he saw them so strong in Larsa. They had only made Ancita easily-manipulated-- and pleasant company, for all that that mattered. But they seemed driving forces for Larsa, who was forever wanting to _help, save, rescue,_ and make better of any bad situation he came across or heard about. The Solidor ambition decreed in his little heart that it was his duty.  
  
That would have amounted to nothing, were it not for that inborn _cunning,_ that trait that Gramis admitted was not innate to his own person. The Emperor was smart, but it was through practice, experience, and well-chosen advisors. As Larsa aged, it became quite clear that (though he had none of those things) he was, much like his ‘brothers’ before him, too smart for his own good. Or, more accurately, too smart to be stopped, for he never fell afoul of his own intelligence, guided such as it was by a true heart. (That was to say that he always managed a way out of any predicament he found himself in, because, unlike his ‘brothers’ before him, he didn’t make enemies.)  
  
By no fault of Larsa’s own, his intelligence would have put him into danger if people started asking questions, so Vayne kept careful watch over how others perceived his ‘little brother’, not least of all their own family. It was almost a relief to have an excuse to do away with his older brothers. (He always knew they wouldn’t make Emperor, but to be the cause of their downfall was not his original intention.) They had become too wise to Larsa’s gifts and began to see him as a threat, so it was to Vayne’s gladness that their father decided their treacherous natures meant they had to be disposed of.  
  
His brothers were only the first of a long string of dangers that Vayne took it upon himself to protect Larsa from, including his Lord father. It became his goal in life, though he hid the fact well enough behind his own obvious ambitions, playing ‘devoted brother’ just enough to inspire his opponents to think him a bit soft, but not nearly enough that any but the most loyal of his subjects should know that Larsa was his one true weakness.  
  
Larsa himself did not know, and Vayne intended that he never should. All Vayne’s years of planning (and the circumstance he took advantage of, when it presented itself) lead to Larsa’s security, as Gramis’ youngest son and heir. _Never_ would he take that away from Larsa by admitting their true relationship, even to the boy. Larsa was clever, but he was too good to be much of a liar, and the knowledge would only burden him.  
  
Still, sometimes he wanted to. Larsa was the best thing Vayne had ever done, even if it had begun as simple happenstance, and he wanted Larsa to know how proud he was of what the both of them had accomplished in him. He said as much, as much as any brother could, and he knew Larsa was pleased that Vayne thought so highly of him; he knew that Larsa looked up to him. But of all the deceptions he’d played out in his life, this was the only one that ever troubled him, and the only one he knew he really could not break.  
  
And he really could not. Not even at the very last moment, when all his schemes had bore what fruit they would, and Vayne was embroiled in a fight to the death against the woman his kind-hearted son considered an ally, _a friend._ This was as it had to be, his ill-advised partner had whispered to him, and he knew that to be the truth, for it was the only way now for Larsa to take on the role he’d painstakingly crafted for the boy. To defeat Lady Ashe, or to fall by her hand, it didn’t matter overmuch; this would be Vayne’s end, and the beginning for his progeny.  
  
His one final human wish, wrapped up tight and buried beneath the tumult of what he’d become together with Venat, was that Larsa forgive him for the pain he’d caused, and never realize that he’d done it _for him._ Better that he think Vayne a wayward brother lost to selfishness, and not know it was in his blood to cause such devastation simply… for love.  
  
It was a love he took to his airy grave, and realized as one of his last fleeting mortal thoughts that _this_ must be how House Solidor loved: so secretly that one might never know. Perhaps that was _their_ curse.  
  
If Vayne was lucky, Larsa would be the first to love openly, to love without destroying himself in the process. He thought he had a good chance of it; Larsa always did things as he saw fit, and no other way. Of all the things Vayne had given him, that was perhaps the best of them.  
  
Proud, and with faith in Larsa, he faded into the mist in peace, taking their secret with him.


End file.
